Plot Synopsis

Hi-5 is a children's television show produced in Australia and has been showing on the Nine Network since January 1999. The show is hosted by a group of five, mid-twenties presenters; Charli, Kelli, Kathleen, Nathan & Tim. The television show consists of songs, performed either by the group or by individual members, stories, animation, on location visits such as animal farms, puzzles and some activity segments.

This particular DVD features all of the above in 20 segments which run for approximately 55 minutes. It was previously released on video in 2002. The theme of this disc is magic and imaginary lands. It includes segments about the pyramids, fairies, magical creatures, giants, cowboys and other such imaginary creatures or situations. There are (as usual) three songs performed by the entire group. This time they are Let's Pretend, Opposites & Buried Treasure to go along with the magical theme.

The program is light, friendly, colourful and moves quickly from topic to topic to avoid losing its audience. My test audience (my 18 month old son) was happily bopping along and seemed to be enjoying himself. He especially responded to a story about Captain Puffy Pants and his pirate ship.

The music is very catchy and the studio audience obviously know all the words and actions. To my ears, the songs are a bit samey but I'm sure the kids don't care.

Transfer Quality

Video

The feature is presented in a 1.75:1 aspect ratio 16x9 enhanced which is the original aspect ratio.

The picture was clear and sharp throughout, with no evidence of low level noise.

The colour was very good throughout with all colours being vibrant and well saturated, with only the merest hint of colour bleeding.

There was some minor aliasing and some jagged edges especially during outdoor scenes.

There are subtitles in English for the hearing impaired which were clear, easy to read and exact to the spoken word.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness

Shadow Detail

Colour

Grain/Pixelization

Film-To-Video Artefacts

Film Artefacts

Overall

Audio

The audio quality is good, but very front and centre focussed.

This DVD contains only one audio option: a Dolby Digital 2.0 surround soundtrack encoded at 320 Kb/s despite an additional Dolby Digital 5.1 track being listed on the box.

Dialogue was clear and easy to understand.

There were no problems with audio sync, although some songs were fairly obviously lip synched.

The music by Chris Harriott is very catchy but slightly samey.

The surround speakers were used to add atmosphere.

The subwoofer was not used.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue

Audio Sync

Clicks/Pops/Dropouts

Surround Channel Use

Subwoofer

Overall

Extras

Menu

The menu includes the ability to repeat the program forever, choose specific songs or stories or choose the songs sung by particular performers. Each performer's songs can also be repeated forever. To my mind the menu system is a bit fiddly for the kids to use themselves.

Trailers

Advertisements (including the stores where you can buy them) are included for approximately 10 other Hi-5 titles.

Karaoke

This option allows for the three main songs from the program to be played (on endless repeat if desired) with or without the singing and with the lyrics printed on the screen for singing along.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view
non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually
also NTSC compatible.

This disc does not seem to be available outside of Region 4.

Summary

This disc contains just under an hour of Hi-5 singing, dancing and telling stories.